Biomedical Ethics at the Wellcome Trust

Jacob LeveridgeBiomedical Ethics Programme

• An independent research-funding charity

• Established 1936

• Funded from private endowment

• Managed for long-term stability and growth

• Interests range from science to history of medicine

The Wellcome Trust

Wellcome Trust mission

“To foster and promote research with the aim of improving human and animal health”

What we have funded in the past

• Most of the nearly 50 Biomedical Ethics awards made since 2003 have been for seminars and symposia

• The majority of awards have focused on short training courses in research ethics

• Most awards have been to sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian sub-continent

A shift in emphasis…

• We will now shift our focus towards more advanced capacity development and support for scholarship in ethics research

• This does not have to be research in research ethics, but it must demonstrate local relevance

• We will no longer support training in basic research ethics

What counts as research in ethics?

• Ethical issues must be central to the project’s aims

• The project must include some ethical analysis of what ought or ought not to be done

• We will no longer fund research that is purely descriptive

• We want to see more collaboration

The support on offer

• Personal support

– PhD Studentships

– Research Travel Grants

• Project support

– Small Project Grants

– Project Grants

– Symposia

Existing personal support available

• Studentships - To enable young scholars to undertake basic training in research and methods by up to three years of full-time research leading to a doctoral degree at a university in a developing country

• Research Travel Grants - For short-term visits by scholars within their own country, or to another country, for the purposes of collaborative research and networking

Existing project support available

• Small Project Grants - To meet the direct costs of a modest research project, which might be a pilot or capacity development project

• Project Grants – To meet the direct costs of a larger research project

• Symposia – To bring representatives of different disciplines together to discuss ethical issues arising from research or healthcare practice in developing countries

Other forms of support

• The Trust continues to support the Global Forum on Bioethics in Research

• A new International Public Engagement funding scheme, which will include possible support for descriptive ethics research

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/doc_WTX036603.html

or e-mail internationalengagement@wellcome.ac.uk

http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/funding/medicalhumanities/biomedicalethics/